230
ten generations of slavery. It is very unfair, from this sample, to judge of the natural genius of this race of men ; and after suppos ing that Don Ulloa had not sufficiently calculated the allowance which should be made for this circumstance, we do him no injury in considering the picture he draws of the present Indians of South America, as no picture of what their ancestors were, three hundred years ago. It is in North America we are to seek their original character. And I am safe in affirming, that the proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America, place them on a level with whites in the same uncultivated state. The North of Europe furnishes subjects enough for comparison with them, and for a proof of their equality. I have seen some thousands myself, and conversed much with them, and have found in them a masculine, sound understanding. I have had much information from men who had lived among them, and whose veracity and good sense were so far known to me, as to establish a reliance on their infor mation. They have all agreed in bearing witness in favor of the genius of this people. As to their bodily strength, their manners rendering it disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed in la bor will be weaker with them, than with the European laborer ; but those which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which are employed in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriv ing ambuscades for him, and in carrying them through their exe cution, are much stronger than with us, because they are more exercised. I believe the Indian, then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so ; but it would be hazardous to af firm, that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so. 3. As to the inferiority of the other animals of Ame rica, without more facts, I can add nothing to what I have said in my Notes.
As to the theory of Monsieur de Buffon, that heat is friendly, and moisture adverse to the production of large animals, I am late ly furnished with a fact by Dr. Franklin, which proves the air of London and of Paris to be more humid than that of Philadelphia, and so creates a suspicion that the opinion of the superior humidity of America may, perhaps, have been too hastily adopted. And supposing that fact admitted, I think the physical reasonings urged to show, that in a moist country animals must be small, and that in a hot one they must be large, are not built on the basis of ex periment. These questions, however, cannot be decided, ulti mately, at this day. More facts must be collected, and more time flow off, before the world will be ripe for decision. In the mean time, (loubt is wisdom.
